1. Field
One or more exemplary embodiments of the inventive concept relate to a microfluidic device comprising a microfluidic structure, a method of analyzing samples using the microfluidic device, and a method of measuring dilution ratios.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various methods of analyzing samples have been developed to, for example, monitor environments, examine food, or diagnose the medical condition of a patient. However, these methods require many manual operations and various devices. To perform an examination according to a predetermined protocol, those skilled in the manual operations repeatedly perform various processes including loading of a reagent, mixing, isolating and transporting, reacting, and centrifuging. However, such repeated manual processes may produce erroneous results due to “human error.”
To perform examinations quickly, skilled clinical pathologists are needed. However, it can be difficult for even a skilled clinical pathologist to perform various examinations at the same time. Even more serious, rapid examination results are necessary for immediate treatment of emergency patients. Accordingly, there is a need to develop various types of equipment enabling the simultaneous, rapid and accurate performing of pathological examinations for given circumstances.
Conventional pathological examinations are performed with large and expensive pieces of automated equipment and a relatively large amount of a sample, such as blood. Moreover, results of pathological examinations are only available from two days (at a minimum) to roughly two weeks after receiving the blood sample from a patient.
In order to address the above described problems, small and automated pieces of equipment for analyzing a sample taken from one or, if necessary, a small number of patients over a short time period have been developed. An example of such a system involves the use of a microfluidic device as follows. Initially, blood is loaded into a disc-shaped microfluidic device and the disc-shaped microfluidic device is rotated so that serum is be isolated from blood due to the centrifugal force. The isolated serum is mixed with a predetermined amount of a diluent and the mixture then flows into a plurality of reaction chambers in the disc-shaped microfluidic device. Next, the reaction chambers are filled with reagents prior to allowing the mixture to flow therein. The reagents used may differ according to of the goal of the blood tests. When the serum reacts with different reagents, predetermined colors may appear. The change in color is used to perform blood analysis.
In this type of analyzing device, the dilution ratio of the sample and the diluent greatly affect the reliability of the test.